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But both she and Premier Kathleen Wynne are refusing to make the report public until the completion of an upcoming review of police oversight bodies in Ontario, which they say will include public consultations.

“I was very well briefed by both the deputy minister and my chief of staff on the report. I read the report,” Meilleur, the province’s chief lawyer, told the Star.

“It’s important for me. I hear the concerns out there from every quarter. I hear from the community, including Black Lives Matter, I hear from the director of the SIU, I hear from the chief of police.”

In a statement to the Star, Wynne insisted that public confidence in the transparency of police oversight agencies is a priority for her government.

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“We recognize that there are concerns about the current process, including whether SIU reports are made public,” Wynne said in an email Tuesday.

The Black Action Defence Committee called Tuesday for Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur to be replaced because she has had a report into the shooting death of Andrew Loku for a month but didn't read it until Tuesday.
(Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

“We have a responsibility to ensure that the public interest is being served, that’s why we have committed to public consultations. It is my objective that the review and public consultations will guide the form that public reports will ultimately take.”

Wynne’s statement comes as the Black Action Defence Committee is calling on her to fire Meilleur, after it was revealed in the Star on Monday that attorney general had not yet read the report into Loku’s death, even though it had been submitted a month earlier. The committee also wants the report released immediately.

“Can you imagine — with all the controversy that this case has caused, with all the protests, Black Lives Matter outside police headquarters, demonstrations at city council and the legislative assembly, and the barrage of articles and broadcasts by the press, including the series (on the SIU) published by the Star in last Saturday's paper — she did not find it important to read the report?” said the committee's director of communications, Kingsley Gilliam.

“Saying (on Monday) that her chief of staff has the copy, and that she will read it in due course — is that carrying out the responsibility of attorney general of Ontario? That's why we're demanding that the premier fire her.”

A co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto said the issue goes beyond one individual, and is about an entire system that is failing society.

“This is a systemic issue, this is a culture where the attorney general thought it was OK not reading the report for a month while Torontonians were outside literally talking about life and death situations,” said Rodney Diverlus.

“All our government officials must be held accountable, and if that means to step down, or adding new voices to the table, I think that that is something that anybody in this movement would welcome.”

Meilleur is standing firm on not wanting to release the report.

“It will confuse the consultations. Never (has) any SIU report … been released in the past — never one. There is a call for public release; there is a call for other changes.”

Asked if future SIU reports could be made public as a result of reforms, Meilleur said: “I don’t know yet, because it’s going to be part of the conversation, part of the consultation.”

The SIU director is mandated by legislation to submit every report from a completed investigation to the attorney general, but the government is keeping those reports secret, saying that their release would violate freedom of information and privacy legislation.

But Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner told the Star last week that “there may be circumstances of significant public interest” where the SIU could disclose the names of officers involved in SIU investigations “or other information associated with its completed investigations.”

Meilleur did say Tuesday that some information in the Loku report could finally emerge at the coroner’s inquest into his death, for which no date has yet been set.

“There will be no comment about the report in the sense that we have a coroner’s inquest that is starting soon,” she said.

“I’m sure there will be some information from the SIU report that will be released through the coroner’s inquest, so I am not going to make a decision now to release the report.”

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